The Beginning of a Cycling Season
Building Form, Racing Early, and Trusting Your Bike
The beginning of a season is never just about racing. It’s about building — form, confidence, and trust in every detail. Spring brings that shift: longer days, higher volume, and the first real tests of where you stand. The legs are not yet at their peak, but the work is already there — in the kilometers, in the climbs, and in the consistency of each week.
This year started with exactly that approach. Big training blocks, over 400 kilometers a week and more than 5,000 meters of elevation, combining endurance with sustained climbing efforts. These early weeks are not about perfection — they are about creating a foundation strong enough to carry you through the months ahead.
And then, the first races arrive.
Granfondo Colnago Lake Garda was one of those early-season benchmarks. A fast start, a strong field, and a course that demanded both control and endurance. The kind of race where you don’t yet feel at your absolute best, but you have enough to fight. Finishing in the Top 10 overall women was not just a result — it was a signal. The training was working, and the form was already there, even this early in the season.
Racing early season in Spain
Soon after came Gran Fondo Lloret de Mar — a completely different challenge. Familiar roads, but never an easy race. Constant changes in rhythm, short climbs, technical sections. It’s a race that rewards efficiency and precision. That day, everything aligned, and I took 1st place in the long distance category. Not because the season had peaked, but because the base was solid enough to perform. But what defines this part of the season even more than racing is the terrain you train on. In Catalonia, climbs are not just part of the ride — they are the ride.
Col de Fòrmic and Santa Fe del Montseny stretch close to 20 kilometers each, long and steady. Climbs where you settle into your effort and stay there, minute after minute. These are the efforts that build real strength — not explosive, but controlled and repeatable.
And then there is Rat Penat.
Short, brutal, and unforgiving. Ramps reaching up to 28%, demanding everything at once — power, balance, and control. There is no easing into a climb like this. It’s immediate, intense, and very real. And in these moments, you feel exactly how your body and your bike respond under stress. Across all of this — long endurance rides, early-season races, steep gradients — one thing has remained constant: the feeling of confidence on the bike.
Confidence in the TIME Scylon
The TIME Scylon has been there in every scenario, adapting naturally from race intensity to long training days. It’s not something you think about while riding — and that’s exactly the point. Whether accelerating in a group, holding speed on a descent, or maintaining efficiency deep into a multi-hour ride, the bike responds without hesitation. For me,now that I have spent a year getting it right; a bike fit, adjustments, different wheel variations – it’s become a part of me and we ride as one unit. A new season does however bring new challanges, and I need to dial it in again – to get those final elements in tune.
At the beginning of a season, nothing is fully defined yet. Form is still developing, goals are still ahead, and the biggest challenges are still to come. But this is where everything starts to take shape.
The work is done in the background — in the long climbs, the heavy weeks, the early races where you test yourself before you’re fully ready. And through all of it, you begin to build something more important than peak performance. You build trust.
Trust in your preparation. Trust in your progression; and trust in the bike beneath you — ride after ride, climb after climb — as the season begins to unfold.
